The warrior stood in front of the leader and waited to be welcomed. Silver Bear remembered his name — Running Feet. He was from the band of Long Bow down on the Arikaree.
“Running Feet, welcome. Sit. You’ve had a long journey.” He looked at his number-three wife. “Small Doe, bring food and sweet water for Running Feet.”
Number-three wife promptly brought hot stew, along with a clay pot filled with pure, cold spring water. The warrior ate the stew hungrily, savoring the small wild onions in it. When the food was gone, he turned the bowl upside-down, indicating he could eat no more. Then he looked up at Silver Bear and got to the purpose of his visit.
“There is great pain and worry in the Arikaree camps, great leader Silver Bear. Four of our camps have been attacked by a devil firing a long gun. He is like a spirit we never see. We search but can find no trace of him or of any horse he may use.
“He has killed nine of our people. Five warriors are now with their ancient ancestors, as well as three women and a child. The long gun sounds like the devil gun that those who slaughter the buffalo use. He kills just at dusk, then is gone in the night, only to strike again another day at another camp.
“This dusk spirit also has struck at two Sioux camps, and they are furious and preparing to wage war on all white eyes.”
Silver Bear watched the messenger. Running Feet was a courageous warrior with many victories, but now he was afraid. Even telling the story made him tremble.
“Warrior Running Feet, there is no spirit that can shoot the white-eye long gun. This spirit is nothing but an angry white eye, or perhaps two of them. They strike at dusk so they can fade away into their friend the darkness and escape when you try to follow and punish them. We must raid in retaliation.”
He closed his eyes and thought through the situation, considering the time of year and the months yet ahead when they could do their hunt. “I’ll go back to your band with you, and on the way we will speak with as many Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne bands as we can find. It’s time we have a coming together of the three peoples in this area to form a powerful force to drive the white eye and his Horse Soldiers from our hunting grounds forever.”
That noon, the council of Silver Bear’s band met and talked long and loud. Silver Bear presented the plan to call for a coming together of the tribes and bands. Then the warriors spoke. Every warrior was free to speak his opinion.
When all was said, Silver Bear lit the ceremonial pipe and drew hard on it, then passed it around the circle of twelve on the council. All twelve warriors who agreed with the plan would smoke the pipe. Those who were opposed would not smoke. Every warrior on the council took the pipe and smoked.
On the three-day journey, Silver Bear and Running Feet spoke with eight different leaders of all three tribes. They arrived at Long Bow’s band on the Arikaree and found the band preparing for a raid. They planned to sweep eastward to a pair of farms that had been settled recently and strike back with a vengeance for the two warriors and the child killed in their camp by the long-gun white-eye coward.
During the preparations for the raid, the council met and listened to Silver Bear and quickly approved of his plan for a gathering of the tribes. It would be ten days from that day, and the central gathering place would be the Arikaree River, a half day’s ride upstream from where it joined with the Republican.
Silver Bear walked the camp, talking with old friends. He had relatives here who had chosen to follow Long Bow years ago. In the Cheyenne society, any Cheyenne was free to come or go from any band. If a man decided he no longer believed in a leader, he could pick up with his belongings and move to a new band and live there without question or penalty.
He commiserated with the widows of the slain warriors. Both of the dead warriors had had two wives, and now there were four women and three children with no one to hunt for them. One returned to her father’s tepee, one went to her sister’s husband’s tepee and became his third wife. The other two were still waiting, wondering what would happen to them. The women had the customary healing wounds on their arms and breasts where they had slashed themselves in their frantic, terrible mourning. Proper respect must be shown and grief must be loud and painful.
Suddenly, two riders came thundering through the campsite. Both ponies were ridden by boys no more than ten or eleven. Both were working hard at guiding the ponies through the tepees and buffalo drying racks. One of the horses caught the edge of a drying rack and dumped it onto the ground.
The woman who tended it did not even look after the pony and the two boys as they rushed on past. She bent and set the drying rack back up, then brushed off the fallen strips of buffalo meat that were almost dried into jerky and arranged them again on the series of sharp pegs driven into a soft pine pole across the top.
It was the way of the people. Children were almost never scolded and never struck. They went their own way. Sometimes they were given jobs to do. Often the girls were asked to scrape skins. If they did the work, they were praised. Soon they realized there were certain things they had to do to be full members of the band. It made for a carefree and happy childhood.
Silver Bear remembered the raid coming tomorrow. He had brought along his sacred bonnet that he always wore into battle. He was convinced that it gave him total invulnerability to the arrows of other tribes and to the bullets from a long rifle or pistol.
Before doing battle, the Cheyenne leader performed a complicated series of cleansing rituals. He went to the tepee that had been loaned to him for his overnight stay and began the strengthening of his spirit so his magic would be powerful against the white eye.
First he took off his breechclout and stood naked in the tepee. He closed his eyes and turned around slowly ten times. Then he prostrated himself and hit his head three times on the hard floor, offering his earthbound spirit to the Great Spirit.
With that done, he put on his breechclout and took his bow and arrow and walked into the timbered slopes behind the camp. There he sent up prayers and made an offering of a sacred bead from his medicine bundle to the four points of the compass, then prayers to Mother Earth, Father Sun, and his Cousin Moon. Then he sat perfectly still for two hours, legs and arms crossed, to let the spirits speak to him.
As he sat there, two young boys ran past him hunting a badger. They would capture a live badger for the war ceremony later that night.
When Silver Bear returned to the tepee after dark, he was brought food. He pushed it away. One of his taboos was that he could not eat for twenty-four hours before a raid or a battle. He heard a call and went out to join in the ritual of the badger.
The badger the two young boys had caught was held high by Long Bow. He pierced the badger’s heart with a knife and killed it. At once he sliced open the belly and ripped out the entrails, then lay the carcass on its back on a bed of sage. The badger would lie there all night and the creature’s blood would pool in the cavity created in its midsection.
Just before they left for the raid, the warriors would unbraid their hair and walk by the badger. They would stare down into the pool of blood, looking for their reflections. If a warrior saw himself with white hair and wrinkled with age, he knew he would be safe on this raid because he would live to be an old man. If the warrior saw a man with a bleeding head because he had no scalp, he knew it was a bad omen and he would at once withdraw from the warpath and not go on the raid or into battle that day.
Silver Bear stared at the badger for a moment, wished its spirit well, then went back to his lodge to complete his rituals before he slept. He prostrated himself and prayed to the Great Spirit for an hour.
Afterward, he took out his sacred war bonnet and studied it. He carried it everywhere he went because it brought him strong magic.
His bonnet was really an elaborate headdress almost three feet long. It was made of two pieces of finely chewed doeskin, soft as silk and sewn together. The inside piece had been dyed blue and the outside a rich red. On the sides of the red were worked trading beads ma
king four bands of white, each an inch wide. Between them were twin tepees six inches high.
Four sets of the twin tepees worked down the left side of the headdress. Through the middle, a six-inch wide strip of red fox fur was carefully sewn together so it extended from the top of the bonnet all the way down to the bottom.
The far side of the red-dyed doeskin also held bars made of small white beads, and between them four sets of two lances with bright steel points. Down the middle of the back of the fox fur, twenty-three eagle feathers were pushed into the fox skin and glued in place so they stuck straight out.
Across the top of the war bonnet and covering Silver Bear’s forehead was a complicated pattern of colored beads sewn to heavy buffalo hide. Dangling down the sides covering his ears were magic charms, one on each side made from stuffed kingfishers and festooned with beads and feathers. The swift and agile kingfisher bird brought Silver Bear speed, so he could dodge arrows and lances.
Silver Bear cleaned the headdress carefully and hung it on one of the side poles. Then he performed the last of his rituals. He went outside and made one last appeal to his Cousin Moon to protect him in the battle to come. His magic complete, he could sleep deeply.
In the morning he arose early, did not eat anything but only drank water. One by one, the warriors going on the raid rode past the medicine man’s tepee. He met each one and waved a long branch over each warrior’s head to mark them so the spirits high above could see the warriors and grant each one the strongest magic so he would be brave and victorious.
Silver Bear rode out with the rest of the fifteen warriors. It would take a whole day’s hard riding and part of the night before they came to the place where the white eye had built up two of his wooden structures — the white man’s tepee. This would be the first of many victories in their war to drive the white man away.
7
Enemy raids were an important part of the Cheyenne way of life. The men had practiced being warriors since they were three years old and their fathers had small bows and arrows for them. To ride into battle or on a raid against a worthy enemy was the sole purpose of a Cheyenne warrior’s life.
In days past, a war party might ride for three weeks to get to an enemy. On these trips they took along a few women to cook for them, and they might cover six or seven hundred miles. But now the white man had pushed the Cheyenne higher into the mountains, far from the flowing plains. Their scouts had reported this raid would cover only about “a day and a half ride” to get to the white-eye lodges. They each left with a roll of pemmican around their waist and a few sticks of buffalo jerky to chew on.
Being an honored guest on the raid, Silver Bear rode up front beside Long Bow. They talked as they rode, remembering their youth when they were in the same camp and played at being warriors.
“The old ways are slowly fading away,” Long Bow said. “My father never raided the white eyes. He said they were too easy, like killing a wounded buffalo. He enjoyed a good fight but with a man who was as skilled as he was.”
Silver Bear nodded. He remembered that one day Long Bow’s father had found a Sioux warrior who was more skilled than he was and that he died learning the lesson.
“We make this raid, then we prepare for the Coming Together on the Arikaree,” Long Bow said. “How many warriors do you think we can gather?”
“Seven hundred to nine hundred, if we can get word to all of the Arapaho. The Sioux are easy to find, and we will contact each of the eleven bands of Cheyenne in this area.”
They rode faster then, racing across the down-slope of the last timbered ridge into the sweep of the plains toward the far horizon. Both men talked of the times when their people had been free to hunt and settle in this part of country. It was not long ago that the white man had come to destroy their way of life.
They rested their horses after a four-hour ride. The warriors lay in the shade of small trees along a stream and let their mounts drink and rest. The ponies were smaller than those the Horse Soldiers used, but they were range bred and hardy and could survive on twigs and brown grass, where a cavalry mount would starve.
Soon the small band rode on, replacing their lead scout every few miles. They watched for any formations of white-eye troopers. Long Bow wanted no confrontations with the Horse Soldiers before they had completed their raid.
Just before dark the raiding party hit a small stream and followed it eastward. It was nearly midnight when their lead scout came back and reported, “The first white-eye camp is ten long arrow shots ahead. The second settlement is three times that distance to the right.”
They settled down in the trees along the river to sleep and wait for dawn.
At first light, the Cheyenne were up and had put on their war paint. The paint was to frighten their enemies, and to signal to the spirits that they were ready to fight but not to die. It helped to keep them safe in the battle ahead.
Silver Bear put on his sacred war bonnet, and whispers flew around the camp that the great Silver Bear would be invulnerable to all the white man’s bullets. His magic would ensure their victory.
The leader heard the talk and he stood in front of the warriors. “I wish you well,” he said. The warriors quieted to listen to this great leader.
“I wish you all strong magic. May you gain many horses and captives before the day is over.”
Long Bow mounted his war pony, and the others did, too. He lead the party forward with a simple hand signal.
A short time later they saw the white settler’s cabin. It was a square box with smoke coming from the top. A man walked out of a small building behind the house. He slipped overall straps over his shoulders and looked up just as the first Cheyenne warrior broke from the brush and fired his rifle.
The shot missed, and the man sprinted toward the back door of the small house. He got within six feet of it when a charging Cheyenne sent an arrow from his bow, which sliced between the man’s ribs, instantly killing rancher Neamiah Van Dercoover.
There had been no cry of alarm from the house. Quickly four Cheyenne burst into the corral behind the barn and claimed the six horses there, driving them out and herding them into a group.
Three warriors leaped from their horses and stormed into the house, war axes in one hand, war clubs wrapped with softdoe skin in the other.
One of the Indians came out quickly dragging a screaming woman with long blonde hair. He knocked her down and dropped an arrow beside her, marking her as his property. The woman sat up, groggy from the blow, and cringed when she saw the rest of the painted Indians riding and whooping around the yard.
A moment later she spotted her husband lying near the side of the house. She screeched as she raced to his side and knelt down beside him. At once she saw the arrow through his chest, and tears poured from her eyes as she screamed at the murderers.
Another Cheyenne warrior came out of the house, carrying a stack of dresses, hats, and men’s pants. He put them down, placed his own marked arrow on the stack, and rushed back into the house.
He soon returned holding a long gun over his head. He yelled in delight, even though he had no ammunition for it and did not know how to use it. A long gun was prime trading material, worth three horses.
A brave had set the barn on fire, and soon it surged up in one huge mass of flames as the dry hay stacked inside for winter feed went up in smoke. Two cows thundered out of the burning barn and the Cheyenne chased after them for sport.
The third warrior ran out of the house, holding a child in his arms. It was a girl not more than three years old, with long blond hair like her mother. The warrior yelled and grabbed the child by the hair, whirling her around in a circle and finally catapulting her through the air.
The woman shrieked in fury and ran toward her baby. Before she got there, the warrior who captured her, Bent Lance, rushed out and tripped her, then sat on her and whipped his hand across her face twice. She lay there screaming at Bent Lance and at the other warrior who picked up her baby again.
The warrior held the tiny child in the air by her heels and hung her upside down, just out of reach of her mother. He screeched with laughter. Then he bellowed a warning to the other warriors not to touch the child. He held her by her ankles and twirled her around and around, then threw her once more as far as he could.
This time the small girl landed on her head, breaking her neck. Bent Lance roared his anger. It was no sport to throw a dead body. The warrior searched for a tool he wanted, found it, and hurried back to the child’s body. He lifted the ax and cut the small head off the body, then kicked the head across the yard and called to the others. The game began, using the child’s head as a ball. Someone stopped the game and cut off her hair so the “ball” would roll better, then continued the game.
When Amy Van Dercoover saw the ax fall on her baby, she fainted into the dust of the yard.
After they took what they could from the house and nearby tool shed, two warriors torched the buildings.
An hour after they arrived, the raiders left. Most of the warriors had a bundle of loot they’d retrieved. Among the tools taken were axes, saws, and the greatest treasures of all, files for shaping the metal into arrow points and lance points and sharpening them.
Bent Lance slapped the blond woman, then lifted her onto his horse and sat behind her holding her, in place. The woman twisted and turned and tried once to scratch his eyes. He slapped her again, almost knocking her off the horse. Then he pushed against her nose hard with his thumb. The woman calmed down but cried continuously as they rode to the next small ranch.
This ranch was a cattle spread with three corrals filled with horses, two barns, and a larger house. They paused in the small ravine near the back of the ranch house, and left their booty hidden near the back, along with the woman who they gagged and tied tightly to a cottonwood tree with strips of rawhide.
Cavanaugh's Island Page 6